Will check it out definitely, usually as a source.
And that internet tools is interesting. It's long been time to bring PnP on the internet the easier way. Some still do mailing lists just to play, some develop their own tools, some even buy.

Let's see what those tools are, and see how v4 will be compared to the previous versions.

Caught a little about this recently, the new version of the AD&D rules coming out in 2008. Says theres going to be some neat tools online for enabling play over the internet for tabletop style D&D.

Anyone else into this or planning to try it out when the new rules publish and the online content goes live?

I'm very, very interested in this. I haven't played pen and paper games in ages, but I've always missed them. I've been waiting for a decent mechanism to play online so this sounds very promising to me.

There's already a ton of chatrooms and programs out there that let people play PnP RPG's over the net. Hit me up if ya want some links.

Personally, I'll buy the core books, but our bookshelf is FLOODED with D&D 3.0 and 3.5, as well as first and 2nd Editions. I'm honestly done with that collection. The books I'm missing will go cheap now as they try to push 3.5 off the shelves, and I'll be happy

There's already a ton of chatrooms and programs out there that let people play PnP RPG's over the net. Hit me up if ya want some links.

I've taken a look at some (like through chat, e-mail, forum posting) and I think the one I liked the best was through a chatroom, but it seemed like all the ones I found were more focused on role-playing than on rules. I love RPing, but I also don't want it to be so free-form that you sort of make up the story as you go along. I know some people prefer that type of play, but I want more structured gameplay.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rev_lazaro

Personally, I'll buy the core books, but our bookshelf is FLOODED with D&D 3.0 and 3.5, as well as first and 2nd Editions.

lol, my bookshelves are the same! Here's where my nerdiness really comes shining through...open, unabashed displays of pen and paper RPGs from the last 25 years right along with tons of sci-fi geek-filled books, maps, ship designs and so on.

Well, from what I've been reading at WOTC and D&D Insider it looks like they will be optional/subscription based services published with the 4.0 ruleset. These will include some sort of graphical tabletop interface to play over the internet, with a character designer and some other neat tools online to boot. Supposed to basically be able to play a tabletop version of D&D completely over the internet...

I haven't played D&D since the 1980's, and this piqued my interest quite a bit. Have no clue about the path the franchise has taken since then, and didn't try the MMO D&D either...

While I'm all for rule changes, I can't stomach the huge leap they're making to the FR timeline. They're going to kill some major deities (see link for spoilers), reorganize everything, play around with countries...

As for rule changes, I feel that 3.0-3.5 is a good balance between complexity and speed of combat. I'm not sure what else they want to do in 4.0...

If you want an idea of what 4.0 has for us, go look at the new Saga Edition of the StarWars d20 game. Still D20, but streamlined classes and skill trees. The stuff that's mostly turning me off to 4.0 is the stuff I absolutely loved about 3rd and 3.5 taking a massive step backwards. For instance, I love the fact that in the 3rd edition of D&D you can slap templates together to make a Kobold a level 6 Sorceror and a level 2 Rogue if you wanted. They've already announced that a Kobold is, well, a Kobold. A Kobold Sorceror is, well, a Kobold Sorceror, and has the following stats....

So yeah, it's gonna have to be a wait and see. Classes with a set skill tree as opposed to the skill points per level makes me feel like they're trying to make D&D more like WoW or Diablo instead of a tabletop game.

Last note:
If you're wanting some good interfaces for handling PnP mechanics, I suggest:

There's another program I've played with but I'm gonna have to get back with everyone if it's open to the public yet...friend of mine was helping with a project with a more userfriendly Java applet client/server program that lets someone host a "table" and the miniatures were like little graphics files you could make in Photoshop (they were called pogs) and it had a complete dice roller and everything as well.